Ted Baxter

Ted Baxter is a fictional character on the sitcomThe Mary Tyler Moore Show (1970–1977). Portrayed by Ted Knight, the Baxter character is a broad parody of a vain, shallow, buffoonish TV newsman. Knight's comedic model was William Powell, and he also drew on various Los Angeles newscasters, including George Putnam, in helping shape the character.[1] The role was originally conceived with Jack Cassidy in mind but Cassidy turned it down, although he did appear in an early episode as Ted's equally egocentric brother Hal.[2] Ted Baxter has become a symbolic figure, and is often used when criticizing media figures, particularly news anchors hired for style and appearance rather than journalistic ability.[3]

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Ted is the pompous nit-wit, narcissistic anchorman for fictitious station WJM-TV in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Satirizing the affectations of news anchormen, the character speaks in a vocal fry register parody of the narrator of the old Movietone News film strips that played in movie houses before the television era. While his narcissism fuels his delusions of grandeur, Ted's onscreen performance is buffoonish. A running joke of the show is Ted's incompetence, featuring a steady stream of mispronunciations, malapropisms, pratfalls, and miscues. Constantly in fear of being fired, Ted is, ironically, the show's only character to survive the final episode's massive layoffs at WJM.[4]

In the first few seasons of the show, Knight played the character broadly for comic effect, a simpleton who would mispronounce even the easiest words while on camera. Knight even grew so concerned that the show's writers were abusing the character that at one point he considered leaving "MTM". To round out Knight's character, the writers then paired him with a love interest, Georgette, played by Georgia Engel, who brings out some of Ted's more lovable characteristics and whom Ted eventually marries. [5]

Knight earned two Primetime Emmy Awards for his portrayal of Ted. Time magazine wrote that "Knight embodied a wonderful comic oaf: vain, inept and hilarious."[6]Bravo ranked Baxter 48th on their list of the 100 greatest TV characters.[7]

On the MSNBC program Countdown, Keith Olbermann regularly referred to his rival Bill O'Reilly as "Ted Baxter" and read O'Reilly's words in a Baxter imitation.[11] Conservative talk show host Rush Limbaugh said of O'Reilly, “Someone's got to say it: the man is Ted Baxter,” in the July 6, 2008, issue of New York Times Magazine.[12]